Alright, after being delayed twice, we finally have the mailbag to post for everyone to sort through. There’s a decent selection of topics this time, including Guitar Hero III, Animal Crossing Wii, and even the Check Mii Out Channel!

Continue reading to find out what our readers had to ask!

So with the announcement of Electronic Arts (big, evil, scary corporation) purchasing both Bioware and Pandemic, my first initial thoughts were that there goes to really creative development companies. Don’t get me wrong i do like somethings that come out of EA, but for the most part i feel they are trying to control the market. So what happens to these two great companies creativity…will it grow with the massive amounts of money pushed their way for larger productions, or will it dissapear with strict deadlines and sressful work hours…is up in the air. My main interest is the little title announced a while back, Sonic RPG on the nintendo DS. This was to be developed by Bioware and published by Sega sometime late next year so obviously it is in the early stages. I can easily see EA giving it the axe if they could, but i’m hoping that Bioware and Sega signed some contract. If you could find out you would be so much help since I was very pleased when this game was originally announced.
- Sean

Christian: No one at BioWare was able to spare a few moments to give me a straight answer, but it’s really not needed. BioWare and Sega almost certainly have a contract that includes Sega allowing BioWare to handle the Sonic license for a limited amount of time, BioWare creating a game for Sega with the Sonic license, and Sega publishing and marketing the game to the world. The acquisition by Electronic Arts shouldn’t affect this deal, but it makes any future collaboration between BioWare and Sega (as a publisher) unlikely.

Of course, the project could be shelved for other reasons, and among those reasons could be situations purposely caused by Electronic Arts (shifting BioWare’s resources, etc.). Honestly, the same thing could happen for any game. Electronic Arts isn’t stupid, though, they know that this project is now essentially Sega giving one of Electronic Arts’ development houses the Sonic license, while Sega pays for getting the game out in public. EA will almost certainly let the project continue.

If we hear otherwise, we’ll let you know.

Now I got a Wii around launch. My friend and I know you, Christian and Matthew got one too. I heard they made minor changes to the Wii, like improve the cords and made the stand somewhat better. Is this true? It seems likely since I’ve seen like 4 different wiimote with minor differences and now there’s a new box[i like the old one better]. Thanks.

Also, grats on reaching such great status on your site. You guys haven’t even been around for a month yet! Remember TPMailman one of your first account members! hahah.
- Val

Christian: I’ve not heard anything on improved cables or stands, so if you know something I don’t, feel free to show me where you’ve heard about it.

There have indeed been minor changes to the Wii console, but all of those changes have been internal and most if not all have had to do with the motherboard configuration and what’s on them. Those changes were made by Nintendo in order to make all new Wii consoles much more difficult to attach a modchip onto, effectively serving as another barrier against piracy. Before, it was easy for people to open up the Wii, attach a modchip, and allow the Wii to play homebrew games as well as commercial games illegally ripped and copied to DVD. Now? Not so easy.

i know that many of you at the Tanooki have guitar hero love, so maybe you can help me out. i haven’t heard much lately, but activision did at one point say that guitar hero 2 was also under development for the wii and would be released in spring 2008. have any of you heard news or a date on this? also, i still don’t own guitar hero, i play expert and consider myself to be exceptional at it, i enjoy the game A LOT, and my girlfriend plays. these are all reasons to buy it but i’m not entirely sure which system i want it on. to be honest i feel that the 360 version has downloadable content so i want to buy it, but the fact that i’m trying to only support one next gen system says no to the 360. the ps2 version is great too because who plays guitar hero for it’s graphics? and it has rock the 80’s. so any thoughts? and what versions do all of you own?
- Sean

Matthew: So many questions, so few answers. I haven’t heard anything from Activision about Guitar Hero II for the Wii, but the odds of the game coming to the Wii are very slim. Instead, Neversoft is most likely putting all their resources into the inevitable Guitar Hero IV: Let’s Try This Again.

As for which version to buy, I say go for the 360 if downloadable content is your thing. Hopefully, Nintendo will get their act together and offer an external hard drive by the time the sequel rolls around. Given Nintendo’s negative attitude towards additional storage, you can’t expect a publisher to even entertain the thought of DLC. So Nintendo, give us our hard drive!

i know that the tanooki shows lots of guitar hero love, so i just wanted to hear from the staff where they are currently at in the career (i’m stuck on the last tier), what your favorite songs are, or just overall thoughts.
- Sean

Matthew: As of right now, I am still trying to defeat Lou on expert career mode. However, I have also been sidetracked with a few failed attempts at “Through the Fire and Flams.” By a few attempts, I mean around 37. I will beat it. Oh yes, I will.

As for my favorite songs, I’m a huge fan of “Cherub Rock”, “Knights of Cydonia”, “Cult of Personality”, “Raining Blood”, and of course, friggin’ “One.” The new note charts make each song feel fresh and the master tracks aren’t too shabby either.

Christian: I haven’t picked up the game yet, and I don’t think I actually played any of the Guitar Hero games so far. I’ve had plenty exposure to the series - my roommates played GHII pretty often on their PS2, and now they’re playing it on the Wii. I guess I’m just not in a hurry to dump a hundred bucks on a game like Guitar Hero III when I’ve spent thousands on several real guitars and countless lessons that included how to play a lot of those songs. I’ll pick up the game eventually, since I love to have multiplayer games around for when I have people over. It’s just not a priority at the moment.

I recently fell in love with GH3, just wanted to know: What’s the highest score you guys have gotten thus far and have any of you beaten “Raining Blood” by Slayer?? That song is so impossible!!?? :(
- Zak

Matthew: Agreed, “Raining Blood” has produced quite a few fits of yelling, swearing, and guitar throwing. Fortunately for my guitar, I finally beat the song last week (insert applause). For the opening mosh, just make sure that your strumming is absolutely precise. The rest will happen on its own.

As for high scores, I’m just trying to finish up the expert mode right now, but I have 5-starred a few songs.

I actually have two questions (Hopefully this isn’t against the mailbag rules). First, considering the memory constraint the Wii has, do you think it is possible that Guitar Hero III could still have downloadable content? Secondly, it was pretty rough being a Nintendo fan during the N64 and Gamecube cycles. How does it feel to be a Nintendo fan now that the Wii is such a success?
- Bille

Joey: Unless Nintendo realizes that having extra storage space is actually a good thing and creates a hard drive peripheral for the Wii, I am not getting my hopes up for additional Guitar Hero III content. In actuality, the downloading issue is the only real reason that I bought my copy of Guitar Hero for my Xbox 360 rather than Wii. Nintendo always seems to do a lot of things right with their consoles, but they always seem to leave out some feature that has no reason not to be included.

Last generation, many people were very disappointed that the Gamecube never allowed online play. This generation, a lot of Wii owners are frustrated with the console’s tiny storage capacity. Given Nintendo’s track record of being fairly stubborn with these criticisms, I have a feeling that if we do ever see an external Wii hard drive, it will most likely be offered fairly late in the Wii’s lifetime.

In response to my feelings about being a Nintendo fan now that they have a top-selling console, I personally feel no different than I did back in the N64 and GCN generations. Although both consoles had their flaws, there were some truly incredible titles on both of these systems. It never really mattered to me that Nintendo was outsold by its competitors as long as the games for the consoles retained their high quality. Unlike Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo has consistently made a profit off of each system it sold, meaning that they were never in any real danger of going out of business. I am happy that the Wii is doing so well, however, the amount of money that Nintendo takes in doesn’t really affect my life whatsoever.

Matthew: Well said, Joey. Basically, we can’t expect developers to even entertain the idea of downloadable content until Nintendo changes their attitude towards the Wii’s storage issue.

As for the other part of your question, it’s great that Nintendo is back on top, but just as it sucks to be in last, it also sucks to be in first. Everybody and their mother (literally) has or wants a Wii, so even hardcore gamers such as ourselves are automatically tagged with the “casual gamer” stereotype that comes with the Wii. This has resulted in one too many GameStop clerks talking down to me and assuming that I know nothing about the industry whenever I walk in the store in search of some Wii love.

Or maybe those guys are just dicks to begin with. Yeah, it’s probably that.

Not long after the Wii launch, PilotWings was announced as an upcoming title. Did this game crash before it even got out of the hanger, or is there still a chance of a future lift-off?
- Goosenapper

Joey: Other than the initial pre-Wii launch screenshots and videos, Nintendo has not released any additional information about PilotWings, so it is difficult to determine if it is still in production. At this point, only time will tell if this title will ever see the light of day, or share the same fate as Project H.A.M.M.E.R.

Matthew: Remember the Pilotwings game for the GameCube? Of course you do! Back in 2003, Factor 5 was apparently devloping Pilotwings for the GCN. After the initial announcement, nothing much happened with the game, and Pilotwings for the GCN was off the radar (zing!).

Once again, the Pilotwing murmurs took off in the pre-launch Wii hype. This time, the game was back in the hands of Nintendo for development. With Nintendo’s schedule for the second half of 2008 in quite the cloud of mystery, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pilotwings made a surprise landing onto your Wii.

I was just wondering what you think are going to be the next features on an animal crossing game for the wii. I think they could use the weather channel to make the ingame conditions the same as the weather condions in your area! Any other thoughts?
- Neal

Joey: If Animal Crossing Wii is to stand out from the previous two titles, Nintendo is going to have to offer a wide variety of online features in order to create a real feeling of an online community. The weather channel functionality would be a very neat addition, but it can’t stop there. When Nintendo first announced WiiConnect24, they specifically used Animal Crossing as an example of receiving content while the console is off, so it is safe to say that they are planning some online functionality. Personally, I would love to see the game follow suit with an MMO style game, but that might be asking for a bit too much.

Matthew: Considering that the next Animal Crossing is most likely a MMO experience, there are just too many possibilities for the upcoming game (assuming the game will allow a great deal of freedom within the user community). Perhaps we could see not only an expanded store (with new content on a daily basis) from Tom Nook, but I’ll be willing to bet that there will be more than enough “vintage” and “indie” themed shops with user-created content.

K.K. Slider is a great guy, but he will be forced to take a step back once some new musicians rise up through the ranks. In fact, we could even be treated to Saturday night concerts by the Animal Crossing version of Dragonforce.

With the Wii overtaking the lives of many guys and gals, I’m sure there are several lonely weekends ahead for most people. Welcome to the Animal Crossing online dating network. Complete with night club.

Ah yes, there are just so many possibilities outside of having the correct weather in the game via WiiConnect24. I’m sure that many of my ideas are outside the realm of Nintendo’s first MMO offering, but you never know. Once again, just give me that hard drive for all those “vintage” threads and giant hand-shaped chairs!

I was wondering if NOA has ever said anything about the various new channels coming out for the Wii. I am super excited for Check Mii Out and I would use the Everybody’s Nintendo Channel right away to test out a few DS games before the holiday season. Are we getting either of these channels this year like they are in Japan?
- Travis

Christian: The Check Mii Out channel actually launches in North America tonight. You can download it now.

As for the Everybody’s Nintendo Channel, we’ll be getting it, but Nintendo of America hasn’t said when we’ll be getting it. To be safe, we’ll assume early next year, but there’s always the possibility for a December release. Keep in mind, though, the new Gift Channel is already scheduled for a worldwide launch in December, so NOA might be considering spreading them out.

That wraps it up for this week. Sorry for the long delay on this one, but we should be able to get back to our two-week schedule in the coming weeks. Thanks for reading!

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